HOW WE STARTED
In 2017, Captain Alice Spence* (an alias for security) deployed to Afghanistan with Army Rangers on counter-terrorism operations. Captain Spence trained and operated with dozens of female Afghan soldiers known as FTPs—members of the Female Tactical Platoon—who were fighting for a more modern Afghanistan. In a conservative Muslim country like Afghanistan, male soldiers could not talk to women, leaving important intelligence untapped. Captain Spence and her US Army colleagues trained the FTPs to gather intelligence from Afghan women** associated with the top Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS fighters. The FTPs served courageously, assisting on these dangerous, complicated, and US-led operations.
In August 2021, as Kabul fell to the Taliban, Spence and her colleagues rescued over 145 FTPs and other women in the ANA, *—but over 95 women and their families (for a total of over 200 individuals) remain in Afghanistan at great risk. Congress deemed this group of women the most vulnerable for retaliation by the Taliban. A Green Beret officer serving with the FTPs commented in a Politico article: “They were one of the few groups who were ‘kill-on-sight’ for the Taliban. If they were captured, they would be killed.”
Our goal is to rescue all 200+ of them.
In the News
The Atlantic, “We Are Not Ordinary People”
The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, “Escape From the Taliban”
The Atlantic, “The Betrayal”
The Atlantic, “I Know the Government Fell, But I Never Fell”
Politico, “The Unknown Story of the Women Who Hunted the Taliban”
Who we are
Our operations are highly sensitive and for reasons of operational security we cannot be fully transparent. The Taliban use various technologies to track these Afghan women and others who help them. Our core team includes US Special Operations officers and citizens with finance, legal and corporate management backgrounds.
Rescue Afghan Women Now is a proud member of the Afghan Evacuation Coalition (#AfghanEvac) as we work together to help our Afghan allies who fought so bravely alongside of us. For more information, please click below.
